TV Series review: Marriage Cuisine, a Chinese Kdrama from 2014!
During the 1970s, drama and romance were everywhere, including the masterpiece "Dallas" series. And later in the 1990s became their final popularity when series like "Sunset Beach" didn't reach a 3rd season and action series like "Viper", "Baywatch", and "McGuyver" growing more popular, the critic were concerned if tv series dramas were coming to an end.
But in the 2000s the romance drama series found a new home in South Korea, and "Kdrama" as it's called became popular worldwide and even mix it with ninja stories such as "Iljimae".
In 2013 the Kdramas reach popularity so high it started to co working with Hong Kong and China. Marriage Cuisine was the first tv series romance co produced with South Korea, released in 7th September 2014, directed by the award winning director Yan Jiangang and a famous end credit song "Qing Ai De" written and performed by the famous singer Fan Fan and a serious family matter story, this drama took their ratings by storm with 200 million viewers per week.
Story:
A Chinese chemist professor Yang Shu (Li Xin Zhao) is working on a skin cancer cure together with a Swedish research team. He is married with the 5 stars hotel restaurant master chef Ar Chen (Yan Ni). They have a daughter, twelve year old Tao Ze (Yang Zhi Wen) who live with her grandmother (Danni Liang) due to her parents constantly busy schedules. One day Yang Shu fails a sample in the lab and cause an explosion, Yang Shu missed his daughters first day at school which causes her to faint. After several failures from Yang Shu, Ar Chen takes the decision and divorce him. One year later Yang Shu becomes famous for his research and even get a promotion from USA. Ar Chen looks in shock and don't know if she should swallow her pride and take Yang Shu back. But then she meets Guo Guo (He Hao Yang) who she thinks is the new Love interest for Yang Shu, but what she doesn't know is that Yang Shu has been tricked into a relationship with Guo Guo when she made him drunk and pretended to be pregnant. What's worse for Yang Shu is that the Swedish research leader (Johan Karlberg) failed the whole samples for the project now he has to start over and there is no time, will he ever be free from this lab nightmare? Ar Chens sister Bei Juan (Qing Yang) introduce her to several men to date, the first is the famous architectural tv star Wu Deng Feng (An Lian Yao) who loves architecture but that's all he loves. Ar Chen gets another date, a psychologist Ai Ming (Fu Yuan Sheng) who is a celebrity look alike and someone who love to keep his pants on......constantly. Later Ar Chen gets another busy task when her homosexual manager Tom (Luan Yuan Hui) need Ar Chen to help him fake a marriage with a so he can keep his work, but the one who volunteered is the one he hate most, the laughable loud mouth Feng Ya Shui (Lou Wei).
Overall:
Marriage Cuisine sounds like a serious drama, yes it is, but also very comical and heart warming family series. The best about it is the focus of family problems. For example it shows how life can be after a divorce, there is no guarantee life will be better specially if one walk out of a 12 years of marriage for nothing. Yang Shu and Ar Chen are two perfect characters reflecting on that, with Ar Chen try to find a mister perfect she fails and keep failing, meanwhile Yang Shu stays faithful no matter how many times Guo Guo push him or try to convince him, he still wants Ar Chen back or at least the family life back, and it doesn't matter how young and beautiful Guo Guo is, Yang Shu fully focus and still love for Ar Chen is well shown. The miss the series do though is the less focus on their daughter, at the beginning she is one the main importants but then her character change to a side character like the comic relief characters the grandmother, Ar Chens sister, and others, as the matter of fact it is more focus on her crazy teacher then herself. Although they did give her a Love interest but that only lasted for three episodes. All in all despite a few misses here and there and a few too long episodes here and there the Marriage Cuisine Series is a very entertaining and drama feeling series that touch one be the heart, and it's made for the whole family, in my opinion I think it could be suited to be aired on Christmas time even though it doesn't take place during Christmas but it has the family spirit like a Christmas story, and also have I never seen the color blue so beautiful as it is in the background of this tv series.
I reward Marriage Cuisine with 10/10, a great gift to our Television from the east.
